CHAPTER VIII. 

 FERTILIZATION. 



In the chapter on soils there has been given a glance at 

 the leading characteristics of California soils, including 

 their endowment of available plant food. This natural 

 fertility is the explanation of the fact that in this State 

 up to this time the question of fertilization has been of 

 minor importance. The securing and husbanding of ade- 

 quate moisture constitute the key by which native fertility 

 is unlocked and so long as this resource permits the gath- 

 ering of large crops of superior vegetable products with- 

 out expenditure for fertilizers it is obvious that we shall 

 have the art of fertilizing under our climatic conditions 

 still to learn. We are already undertaking large expendi- 

 ture for fertilizers for fruit trees, especially those of the 

 citrus family, and the world-wide problem of economical 

 plant-feeding will reach all our producers, sooner or 

 later, as each has the hungrier plants or the thinner soils. 

 The old conception of the pioneers that California cli- 

 mate and soil had some sort of beneficent inter-action 

 which insured perpetual fertility was merely a phase of 

 the perpetual motion vagary, as applied to agriculture. 

 It was a sort of reaction from the older view that Cali- 

 fornia soil would produce nothing but winter pasture. 

 Of course, all these early notions have passed away. It is 

 only a question of time when soil-building will be a regu- 

 lar California effort, but on some lands, and for some 

 crops, it may be a very long time before the problem will 

 be pressing. 



And yet it would not be truthful to convey the impres- 

 sion that fertilization is not undertaken at the present 

 time. There has been great progress during recent years 



